All of Sally's passionate love for little things--especially small children--surged up in her heart. She skipped down the steps of her own particular little platform and ran, with outstretched hands, to the midget. "Pitty Sing" was indeed a pretty thing, a very doll of a woman, the flaxen hair on her small head marcelled meticulously, her little plump cheeks and pouting, babyish lips tinted with rouge. In her miniature hands she was holding a newspaper, which was so big in comparison with her midget size that it served as a complete screen.
"Of course I'll carry you. I'm so glad you'll let me," Sally glowed and dimpled. "You little darling, you!"
"Please don't baby me!" Pitty Sing admonished her in a severe little voice. "I'm old enough to be your mother, even if I'm not big enough." And the tiny, plump hands began to fold the newspapers with great definiteness.
Sally's eyes, abashed, fluttered from the disapproving little face to the paper. Odd that so tiny a thing could read--but of course she was grown up, even if she was only 29 inches tall--
"Oh, please!" Sally gasped, going very pale under the brown powder. "May I see your paper for just a minute?"
For her eyes had caught sight of a name which had been burned into her memory, forever indelible--the name of Carson.
When Sally had carefully deposited the dignified little midget, "Pitty Sing," in the infant-sided high-chair drawn up to a corner table in the dining car, she hurried to the box of a kitchen which took up the other end of the car, the newspaper trembling in her hand. She found David alone in the kitchen, slicing onions into a great pan of frying Swiss steak. Onion-induced tears streamed down his cheeks, but at the sound of Sally's urgent voice, he turned.
"Oh, David, he wasn't killed!" she cried, taking care to keep her voice low. "It's in the paper--look! But he says the most terrible things about us, and the police are looking for us--"
"Hey, there, honey! Steady!" David commanded gently, as he groped for a handkerchief to wipe his streaming eyes. "Now, let's see the paper. Thank God I didn't commit murder--what the devil!" he interrupted himself, as his eyes traveled hurriedly down the front page. "By heaven, I almost wish I had killed him! The dirty, lying skunk!"